The Importance Of Child Labor In The United States

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“The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people.” Cesar Chavez. The fight, in which, he succeeded in, raised salaries and improving working conditions for farm workers. Did you know there is an estimate of approximately 500,000 farm workers under the age of 18? Child Labor laws are different in Agriculture. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the legal age to perform most farm work is only 12 if a parent accompanies the working child. Children who are 12 or older can work unlimited hours in the fields before or after school hours. U.S. law also allows children working in agriculture to perform hazardous work at 16 – other workers must wait until they are 18. Farmers pay their workers by how much they pick not per hour. If a family has more hands picking they are able to make more money, thus, children are in the fields picking alongside of their parents. …show more content…

In chapter 16, Beckoned North: Mexico, we learned the views in which people felt it would be too costly to deport Mexicans back to Mexico. Extracting them would be costly since they are deeply embedded in our economy. Mexicans are being pushed Northward by intensifying poverty. Senator Dianne Feinstein stated, “Without them, California’s agriculture would shut down.” This would lead to a drastic increase in produce prices. The Government has tried to come up with solutions; nevertheless, none of them has appeased everyone involved. President Bush proposed a guest worker program, but the downside of the program the guest workers would have to return home and stay for up to one year before they could return. The book gives us individual stories of Mexican workers in America and the adversities they